


i'll go and shape my heart like yours

by lomanegra



Category: In the Flesh (TV)
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, M/M, Past Drug Use, Warming Up
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-06
Updated: 2014-08-06
Packaged: 2018-02-12 01:00:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,766
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2089815
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lomanegra/pseuds/lomanegra
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Simon's lives have been a series of dedications: first to drugs, then to the Undead Prophet, and now to Kieren and the world he will build.</p>
            </blockquote>





	i'll go and shape my heart like yours

**Author's Note:**

> hi hello i am still so sad about amy and i wanted to write something mostly happy / sappy. thank you very much now and forever to [sophia](http://archiveofourown.org/users/sophialefroy) for all her patience, betaing, and general hand holding through all my feelings (tm).
> 
> the title is from 'cardiff giant' by mewithoutYou. and of course, i don't own any of the in the flesh characters or settings, etc. if you enjoy, i thank you. if you don't, i still thank you for your time. go snuggle some dogs.

**i.**  

The sky is greyish-blue, wet and void, when Simon glances up at it from where he's sat in the grass near Amy's bungalow. Amy is a hollow in his chest, slowly filling with memories of bright, mostly dead eyes and a boisterous smile—and aching, not completely misplaced guilt. "You shoulda seen him, Amy," he says quietly, as if she were beside him, calling him  _Mr Disciple_  and asking after his day. "I've never seen anything like it, never—" Simon shudders, twists his hands in the grass, yanks out a few handfuls. "I've never known anyone like him, like the two of you."

It's quiet.

**ii.**

He finds Kieren at her grave site, staring intently at the ground, heedless of the rain. Simon knows he can feel it—a little—and watches as his hands shake, shoulders hunched. Simon doesn't say anything, doesn't approach, though he smiles wryly at the fact that both their feet had wandered in the same direction. He shouldn't be surprised, really. For all their differences in points of view, they share the same sense of commitment and of caring towards the people who have touched their lives, even in some small way. And Amy—well. Simon has very few words for the kind of space she's taken up in his life and heart. 

Kieren is crouched down, breathing deeply, letting his hands brush the sharp lines in the ground from her burial that are still visible. Long-fingered, delicate hands, capable of the sweetest, most dizzying touches Simon has known and probably much more that he has yet to learn. 

Rubbing his temples, Kieren turns around and startles when he sees Simon, hands stuffed into the pockets of his oversized coat. Kieren's lips curve upward, just a little, and Simon knows even as his heart doesn't beat that it hardly stays still, because he can feel Kieren in it now. He wonders at the life he'll make, at the ways Kieren will fit into it, at every next step they'll have to take before the grief doesn't hit so fast and so hard nearly all the time.

There's a phantom ache in his wrists, at the creases of his elbows, that reminds him of a life where such griefs could be numbed, diluted down into the safest, smallest versions of themselves that he could lock away and forget about. He doesn't miss it, necessarily. Just maybe misses the predictability of it, of knowing how to deal with the complex of emotions constantly bombarding him. It doesn't matter these days; no point in injecting anything into a bloodstream that doesn't circulate. And even if there were, it's not the life he wants for himself anymore. 

Kieren holds his hand all the way back to the bungalow Simon can't bring himself to move out of.

**iii.**

He can't remember what day it is, wonders why he cares, what difference it makes. There are days when he misses the States, the unending shallowness, the stickiness of it all. Could never tell what people meant when they spoke, and it made everyone easy to ignore and easier to forget with every needle. Mostly, he wishes time didn't feel so meaningless. 

Kieren has charcoal all over his hands and smeared in lines down his cheek from an itch. Simon feels his lips tilt upwards in a small smile, fond. But no—fond is too...little. Too brittle, too, and could never encompass the ravenous ways in which Simon needs him down in his bones, an unfragile, irreplaceable throbbing. He catches himself staring at the blue-white of Kieren's eyes, half-closed in concentration. He wants to ask Kieren what he's drawing, wants so many things that Simon wonders how he ever got through a life of never wanting anything but to not be alive.

"Do you think—" Kieren hesitates, looks up at Simon, looks back down at his paper, stops.

"About what?" Simon prompts. "Or in general?"

Kieren slants him a dry look, mouth struggling to remain still. "Seems a bit odd," he says, "everyone's suddenly stopped talking about PDS sufferers—the Undead. It's just—" He shrugs. "Seems a bit odd is all," he says again.

Simon licks his lips as if such a gesture will make a difference in the words he says. "Maybe they're just quieter about it." He can't seem to bring himself to tell Kieren about how the Undead Prophet branded him a traitor, and Kieren hasn't asked why others of the Undead have stopped hanging about the bungalow. There's too much and not enough to the story, and he's ashamed to admit he thought even for a minute he could have driven a blade through the back of Kieren's skull. Kieren is too important, too valuable—and it has nothing to do with  _what_  he is and everything to do with  _who_  he is; hopeful and cheeky and devoted to a world that is not defined by extremes and an unsatisfactory middle ground, but by the value of every person in and of it. 

Kieren looks like he has a lot more to say, but stays quiet, smudges the charcoal lines on his paper, frowning. 

Simon looks and looks and looks at him until his eyes feel sore from not blinking, and then looks some more.

**iv.**

Kieren says his parents have warmed up to him, invites him to lunch every Sunday, and Simon declines every time. Despite Kieren’s insistence and his witty phrasing, Simon can’t imagine Kieren’s parents feel anything but a vague, reluctant kind of gratefulness toward him. And if they knew the truth—well.

But today, he says, “Okay,” and again, quietly, mostly to himself, “okay.”

Kieren looks surprised—pleasantly so, and reaches through the static of Simon’s racing, flummoxed mind to kiss him on the mouth, so sweet and easy Simon has to sit down, flustered.

The sofa squeaks as Kieren sits next to him. “Simon?”

The little breath Simon has need for catches, sticks in his throat. There’s something still so new and raw, tender, that runs through him hearing Kieren say his name. He looks at Kieren, unable to keep the corners of his mouth from turning upward.

Kieren looks like he’s struggling for the right words, the silence stretching outward, and then collapsing as Kieren says softly, “I just wanted to—I wanted to say thank you.” He’s close, so close, his thigh pressing against Simon’s.

“’F course, I—”

But Kieren shakes his head. “No, not for lunch—well, that too. But I just meant…” He tips his head, draws his hands from his lap, traces the spaces between Simon’s fingers. “For saving my life, I mean. Thank you. And for—for showing me there’s more.” He bites his lip, and Simon watches his face, transfixed. “More than—I mean, I know I didn’t—don’t—didn’t share your views about a lot of, um, methods. But you were right, and we can’t just pretend, can’t just squeeze ourselves into being people we’re not. You—you and Amy, you showed me that. And I never got to thank her properly, so I just…wanted you to know that.”

He looks embarrassed, but not uncertain. Simon’s unbeating heart aches for him and all the words he’s ever said, all the words he could never bring himself to say, and all the words he someday will—and all the people who will fall just as deeply for him.

“I—” Touched, Simon doesn’t know how to respond, clasps his hands together before touching Kieren’s wrist, his jaw, reverent. “You’d’ve figured it out on your own, Kieren” he says. But he feels—honoured, grounded.

There is silence, comfortable and homey, before Simon speaks again. “Kieren?”

“Mmm?”

Simon falters, suddenly and unfamiliarly self-conscious. “Ah,” he says. “Nevermind.”

Kieren looks at him now, all wide, concerned eyes and wet, pale lips. “What is it?”

And Simon feels so—removed from his life, like he’s fourteen again and just learning how to trust himself before realising to do so is fruitless, ends with bruises along his forearms and in the scarred muscle of his heart. “It sounds…nice,” he says, “when you say my name.” _Nice_ is such a ridiculous, empty and placating word, he thinks. He doesn’t know why he says it. “If you said it more often—just a little…” He trails off, finds Kieren looking at him curiously.

Simon looks down at his lap, bites his lip, hears Kieren say, “Yeah,” and “Yeah, I will. I’ll—Simon,” he says, and Simon shivers, loves the way the word fits in Kieren’s mouth, like it was crafted just to the shape of his tongue. 

“Simon,” Kieren says again and it feels like a revelation, like he’s just climbed through six feet of soil again and into a bright, bright unending light. 

“Yeah,” he says. “Okay.” And Kieren is smiling at him, small and shy, like the first day Simon had lunch with his family.

Simon thinks he’s ready to face the Walkers again, ready for whatever will come next in this life, where he’s devoted and at the same time a traitor, and not regretful at all. 

He even remembers to compliment Steve’s jeans all on his own this time.

**v.**

Days bleed into weeks into months.

Simon gathers new friends—not followers—and they all love Kieren, stick around as much for Kieren as for Simon. It's...humbling, keeps his ego in check. He doesn't feel the need to have all the answers—or pretend to, and nobody looks to him to know all that will change, all that will be.

They’re a tatterdemalion bunch, all told; a collection of the misfit types with lots of ideas and nowhere to put them, on the edges of what is and what should never be.

He doesn’t see much of his old crowd; they go out of their way to avoid being seen near him and he doesn’t seek them out, has learned not to want a revolution based on the blood of the living or the Undead. There’s a lot of talk about the second rising, he knows, but it’s hushed, kept out of public domain.

No one talks about the MP, really. At least, they don’t anymore. There was talk—before—that she got committed, that she was crazy, that—Simon shakes his head. It’s not that he sympathises with her or anything. But if she’s in an institution functionally the same as the treatment centre in Norfolk, well she’s probably at her worst. And she’s gone, so he doesn’t see the point in talking about it, though he’s grateful the people in Roarton don’t seem so keen on Victus anymore.

The Give Back Scheme has been all but dismantled and people are trying to get back to their regular lives. Of course, it’s Roarton—so regular lives tend to be rife with bigotry anyway, but Simon’s over it, walks through the cemetery to visit Amy, strolls down the pavements with Kieren at his side, proud through his nervousness, and still occupies the public spaces he feels inclined to.

Sometimes there are tremors in his hands and he doesn’t know what they mean, so he ignores them, takes his homebrewed medication while helping Kieren with his government-sanctioned version. Kieren looks off sometimes, shaky and vulnerable, but he speaks with clarity, with vision, and their new friends listen with the same rapt attention they pay to Simon.

Kieren’s proposing a committee of their own currently—talking about how only the Undead are qualified to determine the needs of the Undead, but it doesn’t have to be violent, sacrificial, wants a way to deal with whatever’s happening to them that doesn’t involve going back to Norfolk or taking pills for the purpose of terrorising people.

He doesn’t have the same kind of practised, controlled tone or experience leading large group discussions as Simon has, but he’s brilliant nonetheless. Simon listens, wonders at the possibilities, struggles with the beliefs he came from and what he holds now, smiles as Kieren’s eyes lock on his. If Kieren is looking for Simon’s approval, he has it.

These people have something to believe in—still, again, he doesn’t know—but he’s okay with it not being what he came here to preach. It was vain of him to think he could only teach, only gather, rather than learn like everyone else. He remembers Kieren telling him thank you without even realising he’s taught Simon just as much, if not more.

And he is remarkable now, sat on Amy’s sofa, hands flying everywhere as he talks, wrestles with himself to find the words he’s looking for. And Simon presses a hand to his ribcage, wonders at how far his chest will have to expand to hold in all the love settling in his heart.

**vi.**

Simon is sure Kieren thinks he’s being funny by showing up at the bungalow with a gift. It’s a jumper, oversized and deep blue with an embroidered tortoise that has mysteriously dramatized eyelashes on the front.

Kieren looks smug and amused, but Simon only clears his throat and murmurs his thanks.

He wears it—unassuming and unironically, and keeps his laughter to himself at Kieren’s double-take when he shows up at the Walkers for another forced and awkward family dinner wearing it.

**vii.**

It’s after the others have left, having listened to the two of them for hours and shared their own stories, when Kieren slips his fingers beneath the collar of Simon's jumper, touches the hole at the bottom of his neck for his medication, the ridges at the top of the scar that runs down his spine, the new and eternal bullet wound near his shoulder blade. He pauses, inhales, and Simon closes his eyes, lets Kieren explore the stories, the memories with the tips of his fingers—soft, unhurried. It's nice—freeing—to share himself without having to scramble for words that are too finite and wilting to convey the vastness and the restlessness of his thoughts, of himself.

He feels the most himself in these moments of quiet exploration—with Kieren, for Kieren, of Kieren. Simon’s lives have been a series of dedications: first to drugs, then to the Undead Prophet, and now to Kieren and the world he will build.

The air is chilly inside the bungalow, but it doesn’t bother him; he lets Kieren’s cool hands roam where they will and crosses out the verses in his Bible that he doesn’t think should have been included in the first place, are out of place and have led to the kind of misinformed violence he once partook of. He’s thinking about how to change things, how to start things like committees and organisations and pamphlets for the Undead by the Undead that Kieren would approve of, has convinced others that they need.

“Simon,” Kieren says, low and heady. “Simon.”

Simon turns, breathes out, “You’re remarkable,” and “Kieren,” and shifts so he’s facing Kieren, the ghost of a racing heart coursing inside him.

“What—l?” Kieren always looks shocked, confused, when Simon says these things to him, and he feels a bitter wave of resentment for anyone who taught him he’s worth less than everything Simon has ever believed in.

“You have given these people something to hope for,” he says.

“We,” Kieren corrects. “We’ve—changed minds, I think, even if it’s been a bit difficult to get things changed around here properly. It’s me and you, Simon,” he says.

Simon feels like he can’t hold himself up, puts his shaky hands behind his back and smiles—and he feels so full and free and desperate he can hardly do anything but look at Kieren, bewildered. “Okay.” He’s still smiling. “Yeah, okay.”

And he tells Kieren about some of the things he’s come up with, listens as Kieren tells Simon some of his own ideas, says that Amy would be proper proud of them, happy and laughing with her two favourite boys.

**viii.**

It’s the first official meeting of the new committee for the Undead and—

“Task force,” Simon interrupts. “Committees plan.” He waves a hand dismissively. “We need something with more intent than that.”

Kieren gives him this look like Simon’s just told him he’s decided to be made out of marmite, shakes his head. “Task forces are like—don’t they go in with like bombs and those scary sniffing dogs? That’s not—”

Simon is laughing and a girl with dark skin and nappy hair, who Simon remembers is called Ayşe, pipes up. “Task committee?” she says, hesitant but less so than Simon recalls her being in the past. “Committee force? Committee and task force for the Undead?”

Head cocked, Simon looks to Kieren, finds him chewing on his lip. “All right,” he agrees, mollified, though he still doesn’t seem entirely convinced.

“The power of compromise,” Simon murmurs, only for Kieren to flick his ear. He stares at Kieren—but Kieren turns back to the group of Undead sat in the parlour of the bungalow, and announces their first task, the first kind of progress they can make. And he knows because he’s asked around, has been all over town, has been assured there are people in Roarton who want peace and the only way to get there is to let the Undead determine what is they need and how. He looks to Simon for back-up, and Simon nods along, still surprised at the course this life has taken him on.

They’re talking about visiting the parish council, turning the old, out of commission Spar into a rec centre for the Undead, a place to send partially diseased people who are looking to connect with other people like them—on neutral territory, no ULA associations necessary or implied.

Simon briefs them on the logistics, but mostly serves to rile them up, get them excited, while Kieren talks plans and futures and hopes that Simon knows he didn’t feel a year ago. It’s amazing, he thinks, how so much can change in such a short time, imagines Amy and her enthusiasm and her support, like she’s sat on the carpeting, cheering them on.

He doesn’t know if any of this will work, will make any difference, but he—they—have to try, he knows, because what they’ve tried in the past didn’t work—wasn’t something Simon could bring himself to _make_ work, not at the expense of Kieren. And now that he’s here, all trembling energy and being okay with himself and his lot in life, Simon could never abandon him and the ambitions he carries with him like a duty he never asked for but carries out anyway because he doesn’t know how not to.

Kieren is so beautiful like this, Simon thinks, when he is sure and ready and certain of himself, resplendent. Simon feels like his hands will burn if he merely touches the light, so magnetic and alluring, that is Kieren in this moment.

**ix.**

They make progress—new and bright and Simon feels all used up in the best way possible, restless with prospect, rattled in the spaces between his bones.

The community centre is coming along—slowly, very, very slowly, but the council had elected to fund such a project, and he and Kieren are amassing support in the most unexpected places. It’s not all smooth sailing, of course, because they still refuse the contacts and the mousse and to be people they aren’t. But it’s—

Something. And Simon feels the hope bubble up in him, spread through the inky veins that stick out in his neck, on his forehead.

Those who’ve remained loyal to the Undead Prophet—and those who stay adamant that the Undead are merely abominations—get to him sometimes, make him second guess the new kinds of work he’s doing. But then Kieren will look so proud and so impressed that Simon forgets sometimes that not everything is easy.

**x.**

The ULA burn down the bungalow.

He sits with Kieren through his rage and his sobs, wrecked, until Kieren’s nose is bleeding, ichor smearing all over the front of Simon’s jumper.

Simon moves back, panicked, curses. “Jesus Christ,” he says.

Kieren looks down, touches a hand to his face. “Yeah,” he agrees, and looks at Simon like Simon will know what it means, and he feels every failure he’s ever made so acutely right now that his chest aches.

He doesn’t know what to say, not now, so he keeps holding Kieren close and wonders if Kieren thinks he can stay okay here, now that things are changing and picking up pace and there’s—outrage.

When the newly reinstituted police show up, Simon tells them he forgot to turn the hob off.

Kieren looks at him, questioning—and maybe questioning Simon’s sanity. Simon smiles wryly, then sobers. He says, “I’m tired of war, Kieren.”

Minutes pass and Kieren rubs at Simon's jumper with the kitchen roll, glances at his still-trembling hands like he's been betrayed. "What will you do now?" he asks.

Simon doesn't have an answer for him.

**xi.**

"I'm," Kieren starts, out of breath, his whole body shaking with the kind of violence even Simon is afraid of. "Warming up. I'm—like Amy," he says. "Simon. How is this even possible?"

He's going on and on and on, and Simon just listens, listens and listens, settles next to him on the floor of the old, abandoned farmhouse Simon had...commandeered. It's been quite a fixer-upper, but it's not like he's got much else on a firm schedule. He doesn't know what's going on, why it's happening, only that Kieren looks so, so scared, touching the spot in his neck where a pulse will someday beat again. 

"Jesus," Kieren is saying, asking what's going to happen to him.

Simon holds his hand and walks him back to his parents house, sleeps all night in Kieren's bed next to him, hip to hip and afraid of what will come for the first time in a long time.

He doesn't notice when his nose starts bleeding.

**xii.**

In the end, it's all much simpler and less painful than Simon's expecting—once he gets over the trembling and nose bleeds and the headaches. He's not sure how long it will take, but assures Kieren that whatever happens, they've changed lives and will continue to do so. 

There's a lad—Alexio—who's been hacking the system at the treatment centre in Norfolk, siphoning off information right into Simon's and Kieren's hands. "Thank you for helping us," Kieren tells him.

The kid, all nervousness and acne scars, shrugs. "S'fine," he says. "My sister, she's—like you lot. I don't want anyone getting hurt." He's maybe fifteen and Simon is struck by how remarkable people are capable of being, tense and edgy but so, so resourceful, so ready to fight when they need to. 

Alexio leaves Simon and Kieren be when he notices Kieren coughing up ichor into his hand, all his notes left on the kitchen table.

It's a long road and Simon doesn't know how far they have to travel, only that he feels less than equipped to deal with it all. For now he only hand copies all of Alexio's notes with a chewed up biro so that he can remember; words have always been easier for him to retain when he writes them down. 

Kieren sleeps at his parents' house tonight.

**xiii.**

Kieren's heart starts beating the night the dead rise again.

The fence is up but there's mass panic everywhere, the living pulling out all their pistols and carving knives again. Kieren, one hand on his newly beating heart, says, "We can't let any more people die."

Simon nods, rounds up their committee slash task force slash friends, gathers the few (always) living he trusts, and leads the charge. Kieren's sister Jem is there, sad eyes and firm mouth. "Nobody dies," he tells her. "That's final."

"Yeah, okay," she agrees. 

He shoos off concerned onlookers, tells them they've got it under control, that if Gary comes round, to keep him out. They've got it covered. 

Kieren is coaxing a rabid Undead out of a car he got from who knows where and into the rec centre, where they've set up the basement to treat the second wavers. He remembers the day Kieren told him he knew nothing of taking care of this lot, tenses up his hands and—now they know, have all the information the Norfolk folks have but none of the savagery. None of these new Undead will have their backs carved up at the spine, their vertebrae all rearranged—Simon stops, disturbed. He needs to focus.

Kieren's parents open their house to living citizens, offer support, tell them it's going to be okay, as their son and his friends bring more and more of their own home to the rec centre and get them medicated.

There's sweat all over Kieren's face, between his shoulders and at the small of his back, his face streaked with dirt, but—"No one died," he announces, sends everyone home to get rest, says they can see the second wavers in a couple days. When they leave, he turns to Simon. "Oh my God," he says. "I'm alive. I'm bloody alive. Jesus Christ."

It hits Simon hard in his chest that Kieren—he's so pretty and so vulnerable and so, so brave that Simon has to kiss him, grasp at his jutting hipbones, pour out all his desperation and channel it into the kiss. Kieren gasps like he never has before, going all red and pliant.

"The Second Rising," he murmurs, almost doesn't believe it, and wishes Amy were here to see it. "Incredible and—you," he says. "You're fantastic, Kieren, completely brilliant."

Kieren shakes his head, catching his breath and gingerly touching one healed up scar on his wrist, a thick pinkish-white line. "I just wanna do the right thing," he says.

"And so you have." Simon leads him to the toilet, helps him into the shower, lies next to him all night with the sense memory of so much adrenaline he can hardly sleep. His mind won't stop turning, twisting with disbelief and amazement and sheer, bewildered happiness, the likes of which he's never known. 

He finally falls asleep to the quiet beating of Kieren's heart.

**xiv.**

The ULA has no choice but to disband, the Undead Prophet nothing but a shadow of a lie and a lie of a shadow, fully alive all along and chasing a desperate sort of dream. Simon feels a sting of betrayal before he tamps it down, reminds himself that the Prophet would have had him kill Kieren without any explanation other than  _it needs to_ happen.

He watches Zoe and Brian and the other few who've not fallen away from it pack up a van and drive off. 

A part of him still doesn't believe it's true, and he feels all shrivelled up inside, like whatever air fits into his lungs these days is drying out and wrecking him from the inside. Kieren doesn't offer any words and Simon is grateful, for there's not much he could say; he just clings to Simon's elbow in the car park, breathing deeply and his hair all mussed up from the winds.

It's a different life now, Simon thinks to himself. A better one, even. Still, he wonders what it's like in other places—cities, countries, continents. Have they heard yet?

He feels a bit like he did when his da threw him out for the last time, disappointed and angry, but resigned, ready for whatever it is that's next.

He's got so much more than the sadnesses now.

**xv.  
**

He's medicating one of the second wavers when he feels it, nearly falters. But that—yeah, that is definitely a heartbeat rattling around in his ribcage. "Well," he says to the Undead person in front of him, ID'd as a twenty-eight year old woman named Aoibheann. "Maybe this will happen to you someday too. And if not—well, it's not such a bad life is it? I've certainly lived worse," he tells her. She doesn't say anything, but her eyes are clearing up and her skin is stitched together as much as it can be.

They're doing well, the second wavers are. They always have a couple Undead around to keep an eye, but they've got a pretty swell setup, high-tech in all the right ways and still human enough not to forget that they're people too, that they still matter.

Kieren stops in his tracks when he comes in the room, whispers, "Simon...your eyes, they're—" He doesn't finish, just stares and Simon lets him because certainly he's looked at Kieren enough, wondered at him enough. 

"I'm part of the club," Simon says. "Living again an' all 'at." There are others, he knows, those of the First Rising with their hand tremors and seizures that leave them coughing up bile. Kieren and Simon have explained to them what it means, sat with them through their fear, their hope. 

Kieren puts his hand on Simon's heart, slipped up under his jumper so he can feel the warmth of Kieren's fingers against the thumping of his heart, the rate of which is picking up steadily. He mirrors the gesture, has to close his eyes at the intensity of all the feelings rushing to the surface with Kieren's skin under his hand. Kieren is laughing and Simon watches him, unsure how to feel. He's not certain he knows how to be completely human again, but he'll try.

"C'mon," Kieren says, pulling his hand away and holding up a woven bag. "Let's get the rest of 'em their meds, yeah?"

Simon follows him, mutters, "Yeah. Okay," still disconcerted at the sounds his body makes now, the chill of the air in the basement of the rec centre. 

He thinks about calling his da, decides against it with a bitter, self-deprecating kind of laugh, and celebrates his new life with earl grey and vodka and steak and mash and crunchies because when he thinks about it, he's fucking starved. 

Kieren tells him not to eat too much, but he does it anyway, stuffs himself up and doesn't regret it at all because he'd forgotten the honest, simple pleasure of food. Kieren pats Simon's forehead as he lies in his bed, stomach aching pleasantly.

It feels like the future.

**xvi.**

The second wavers have all responded positively, walking and talking and asking all the right questions. They answer all the questions they can, take the second wavers to their friends and families, watch with relief as most of the disgust that came with the First Rising falls away and leaves only love, only desire for reunion.

It keeps a smile on his face as he walks with Kieren back to the farmhouse, where Kieren coaxes him down to the floor where he still hasn't been arsed to get a sofa yet. Kieren's making jokes, fresh and brazen at the possibilities, and Simon's lips twitch until Kieren is just looking at him, lips pressed into his teeth, hands moving to spread Simon's legs. It warms his blood and he feels his face get all hot, and Kieren is touching him; his lower belly, the bones of his hips, pressing, leading. And Simon gets swallowed up in the want, demanding and brutal in the sweetest way, makes him all pliable and frantic underneath where Kieren is leaning over him.

Simon leans back on his elbows, offers his mouth up to Kieren—and Kieren takes it, bites at his lower lip, slicks his tongue against the roof of Simon's mouth, grasps at his hair. And Simon can't help it, has to reach a hand up to cradle Kieren's face, press his thumbs to Kieren's jaw, gentle but with certainty, as he lowers himself all the way to the floor. Kieren comes with him, sliding down next to Simon, pressed close to his side and slotting a thin, strong thigh between Simon's.

He kisses Simon desperately, murmurs, "I love you," into the hollow of Simon's newly pinkish throat.

Simon pulls away, sits up, pants—"You—what? You do?"

Kieren smiles at him, all soft and happy. "I'm—Simon," he says. "Yeah, I do. And there's—that's it, innit." He pushes his fingers through Simon's hair again, holds him close, watches Simon's face silently.

And Simon—he feels all lit up from the inside, sunk into place. He says, "You must know how I feel about you, Kieren."

"Yeah, maybe." He's touching Simon's shoulder, fingers firm over the spot where the bullet wound is almost completely healed up. "It'd—It'd be nice," he says, "if you, ah, if you said it."

Simon looks him right in the eyes, all deep, dark brown with only the faintest ring of white around his pupils, evidence of a life lost, gained again and won yet again. He's not sure if or when the eyes will turn back entirely, not sure he really cares either way, so long as Kieren is here in the forever sort of way, as forever as being alive again allows, anyway. "Kieren, I don't have words enough for all the ways I'm in love with you." He presses his lips to Kieren's neck, his Adam's apple, the dip of his collar bone. 

Kieren looks at him, full of the same kind of wonder Simon feels burrowed in his chest. It's a new world, he thinks, and it's mostly brave, if not a bit out of sorts. Or at least a new Roarton—and Kieren would never take credit for it, but Simon knows that he himself would never have gotten this far on his own. 

"You love me," Simon repeats, still startled and pleased all over, his tongue feeling thick and inutile,  teeming with half-formed words as he falls back to the floor. 

Climbing over him again, Kieren says, "Yeah," and, "It's a strange world," and laughs, linking both his hands with Simon's, all fingers soil-free.

"Strange, indeed," he says back. But Simon doesn't feel strange. He feels weightless, floating above all the death and the darkness of the past couple years, like the fear is a memory he can bury away at long last. It's a bruising sort of elation, pushing at his throat and out from his mouth as it meets Kieren's, and he hopes it never ends. 

**xvii.**

The world prattles on, and so do the people on it—living or Undead or whatever combinations of the two exist. Simon listens to it and to them, stood at Kieren's side—and smiles.

**Author's Note:**

> thoughts? concerns? delicious pasta recipes?


End file.
